Em; or, Spells and Counter - Spells. By M. Bramston. (Mamas Ward)
—Harold Harfager, Lord Carton's only son, has been kept in leading- strings by his father. Ho breaks loose from them, so far as to take a tour, incognito, in Devonshire, and this tour brings him face to face with his fate. "A damsel of low degree" captures his heart, without inten- tion on her part or consciousness on his. Tho situation is an old one but always interesting, and Miss Bramaton has made good use of it. The vicissitudes that attend the young man's love-affair, the charms which seek to draw him from his word, and the opposing powers which counter- act them, are well described. Perhaps there is a difficulty in supposing that a girl like Ada would have stooped to such devices for winning a heart which did not belong to her. The management of this part of a story is always one of a novelist's greatest difficulties. Yet this, too, is contrived as skilfully as may be. The violent expedients which wo sometimes are desired to accept as ordinary events of social life are not employed, and Ada does not lie more than many ladies of undoubted position and character are accustomed to do. Em is a good story, told with much spirit and humour.
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